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Goose With Arrow in Neck Still Evades Capture

Photographs by Daniel Barry for The New York TimesWhat do you mean I have an arrow through my neck?

Updated, 6:18 p.m. | A goose with a nine-inch arrow through its neck would seem to be a severely compromised animal.

But for a second day Thursday, an injured Canada goose discovered near Prospect Park lake in Brooklyn continued to evade attempts to capture it and get it clearly needed medical attention.

All morning long, a gaggle of park rangers armed with nets and treats pursued their quarry, but the goose, standing erect and wearing its arrow almost like a particularly punk piercing, repeatedly ran, flew and swam off.
The closest the rangers got was around 10:30, when four of them surrounded a flock of about 20 geese on the south shore of the lake, including, at the back of the flock, the injured one, who has been called Sticky by some because the object through its neck was initially thought to be a stick. (It appears to be some kind of arrow or crossbow bolt, possibly with one end sheared off.) Other observers dubbed the goose Target.

One ranger got within about three feet of Sticky, pulled the net out from behind a nearby tree — and hesitated. Sticky flew overhead and landed with a beating of wings in the lake.

Here, Sticky Sticky Sticky.

“We spooked it,” a ranger told a passer-by. “He’s still pretty healthy, which is a good thing and a bad thing.” Sticky’s sex remains unknown to humans; male and female Canada geese look alike to us.

Sticky was first brought to the attention of park authorities Wednesday, but two regular fishermen said they had seen it — or at least some goose making like an avian Steve Martin — as early as three weeks ago.

“It looked fine to me,” said one of the fishermen, Bishmi Anderson, who comes to the lake every Thursday and Friday on his days off from work. “Just had that thing in his neck.”

The fruitless pursuit continued into the afternoon. Rangers, under the glaring eyes of a full-on news media scrum, drove around the lake in white sport utility vehicles.

“We’re hoping to feed it and get closer,” said Sgt. Rick Amorocho of the parks department’s Urban Park Rangers. “They’re very agile.”

Rangers spread the contents of a can of corn and a bag of microwave popcorn on the shore. A bunch of geese came out and ate it. Sticky did not.

From even a modest distance, Sticky was nearly indistinguishable from its peers, the black arrow blending into the black of its neck. The other geese did not seem to treat it any differently.

“I don’t think they even realize he has an arrow through his neck,” Sergeant Amorocho said.

By midafternoon, the rangers had given up the chase. “Efforts were suspended after the goose appeared to be stressed from the experience,” a parks spokesman, Philip Abramson, said in an e-mail message. “We will maintain a regular presence in the park and attempt another capture at a future time.”

I don’t know about New York but where I live in Ohio there is a serious Canadian Goose overpopulation problem. Try mowing your lawn after shooing off 60 geese and see how keen you are on saving one with an arrow in its neck.
I hate to see any animal suffer but this one seems fine and it’s a shame to see so much time and energy wasted trying to catch it.

I didn’t see your post before I left mine! Jeez, you know what they say about great minds….I’ll take “How much does a double dragon roll and miso soup for $20,000 cost you Alex”
Hopefully the answer is: His Job

This is the dumbest story I have ever read in the Times. The photographs show the rangers looking kind of doofy and perplexed, but they’re just doing their jobs. They can’t say “Let’s just forgot about the injured animal.”

This is as opposed to reporters who CAN choose to not write such ridiculous articles. The photographer should turn his camera on reporters who would rather go on a wild goose chase than actually write something worthwhile…

If it was hit by a bow/dart already, then a tranquilizer dart won’t hurt it. Why waste time playing tag with the bird? Seriously, the rangers are thinking like Dudley Do-Right.
— Gregory Malcolm
————————————————————————–
Seriously, Greg, you don’t know anything. Said differently, the rangers know more than you do.

That is a crossbow bolt. Probably from a relatively small, low-poundage crossbow given the fact that it failed to fully penetrate such a small target (unless it was fired at very long range, in which case actually hitting the goose at all is surprising).

As a goose hunter myself, I don’t agree that the rangers should just do nothing. We have a moral responsibility for the well-being of birds and animals around us. That responsibility is part of why we have park rangers in the first place. Either shoot the goose again and finish it off (I’d be happy to eat it), or capture it and have a qualified vet remove the arrow and nurse the goose back to health.

Interesting that there’s so much sympathy for the goose. Maybe they aren’t the pest in Brooklyn they are in less urban areas. Unfortunately, despite hardly ever migrating any more (at least around here), they still have that protected status, allowing them to foul lawns and sidewalks and destroy crops with impunity.

The goose is cooked upside-down with vegetables and herbs in a savory broth, and then turned upright during the end of cooking.
Prep Time: 20 minutes
Cook Time: 1 hour, 45 minutes
Total Time: 1 hour, 65 minutes
Ingredients:

Melt the butter in a large sauce pan over medium-low heat. Add the carrots, celery, onions, apple, and garlic. Saute for 8 to 10 minutes. Add the stock, wine, parsley, rosemary, thyme, bay leaves, salt, and pepper. Turn up the heat and bring to a boil for about 1 minute. Lower the heat to medium-low and simmer for 6 to 8 minutes.

Pour the vegetables and liquid into a large roasting pan fitted with a lid. Turn the bird breast-side down and nestle into the vegetables and liquid. Spoon some of the liquid and vegetables over the goose and add more water (or wine if you like) to submerse the bird half-way. Cover and roast about 1-1/4 hours. Turn the bird over, facing up, and cook another 15 minutes, uncovered or until a meat thermometer registers 160 degrees F when inserted next to the leg bone.

Remove and let the bird sit for about 10 minutes before carving. Spoon some of the juice and vegetables over each portion of sliced meat and potatoes.

Yield: 4 to 6 servings

Recipe Source: Wild Fish and Game Cookbook by John Manikowski (Artisan)

They should offer “Sticky” a granola bar. I asked a family of Canada Geese in Hudson River Park, if they liked granola bars. Then I went to take one out of my bag and they nearly grabbed it out of my hand!

@19 – You don’t understand. This is just any goose; this is a Park Slope goose.

Undoubtedly new committees are being formed as we speak as to form a goose support network. It’s likely that this fowl now has a Facebook account and, as would any good bird, it is Twittering regular update regarding it’s holistic well-being.

Similarly, a Concerned Goose-Loving Lawyers of Prospect Park is undoubtedly in formation with the aim of filing a major lawsuit against the City on behalf of this goose and other, similarly-situated urban geese that have or may at some time in the future become injured while on City controlled property.

I hope once the arrow is retrieved police try to track down who fired it. For those of you saying this is a waste of money, the Times just ran an article linking animal cruelty to potential violence against fellow humans, and the need for those crimes to be investigated: //www.nytimes.com/2010/06/13/magazine/13dogfighting-t.html

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